


Vertigo

by whalehuntingboyfriends



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Acrophobia, Alternate Universe - GTA, Angst, GTA hybrid AU, Hurt/Comfort, OT6, everyone in the world is a hybrid, insecurities and angst and things getting much more complicated than they need to be, rt hybrid AU, traumatic injuries and such
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalehuntingboyfriends/pseuds/whalehuntingboyfriends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all play their roles in the crew, and Gavin’s role is to fly - until the day a heist goes wrong and he falls out of the sky. Injuries might heal, but the mind remembers, and what’s the damn point of a bird who’s now afraid of heights?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Angelology](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelology/gifts).



> I was going to call this 'Free Fall' but the pun was too extreme.
> 
> A gift for my dear friend Angelology/youre-my-bois! Can't thank you enough for everything, not just help with stories but making me laugh and smile so much. ~ <3 This is basically my attempt to cram as much Gavin angst and h/c bingo prompts as possible into the one fic.
> 
>  
> 
> **T/W: phobias, panic attacks, non-graphic violence.**

**1.**

Once when Gavin was younger Dan dared him to do a backflip off the roof. Gavin – seventeen and scrawny and not good at anything much – did it because he was adolescent, and stupid, and Dan wanted to put it on youtube. He was not so bad at flying, then, even if he hadn’t quite got the muscles for it yet, and nothing should have gone wrong except the gutter pipe broke under his foot as he launched himself off, and fell away beneath him, throwing him off balance and sending him plummeting before he could quite flap his wings to right himself.

He broke his leg.

Gavin’s mum blamed him and Gavin blamed Dan and Dan blamed whoever had built the drainage pipe, and said they should sue, but it got several hundred hits on youtube anyway (most of the comments variations upon _'epic fail, you suck'_ ) and Gavin recovered quite without incident.

He had jumped off a lot of roofs since then, sometimes for fun and sometimes for jobs and sometimes drunk and holding Geoff’s hand, and he was not scared, not once, because he knew his wings would not let him fall any more than a person's lungs would let them kill themselves by not breathing. He was older now and stronger and all it took was a couple of flaps to set himself upright again.

But now Gavin was falling.

There was something weightless to it. Not at the start, when he realised what was happening, or at the end before he hit the ground – then he felt the drag and pull of fear and gravity. But in the middle – in the middle, there was a floating disorientation, like he was an astronaut spinning wildly out of control, except instead of space and stars flashing before his eyes it was trees and rocks and the sky – grey, overcast, the clouds dark with rain – and snow.

And in that odd middle ground he thought of Dan, because after that first time, once the cast had come off his leg, every time he jumped off a roof or a ledge or even just flew, Dan would sort of... hover, underneath him, arms up as though if Gavin fell again he could catch him. And whenever Gavin called him out on it he'd just say “I'm spotting you, B,” and leave it at that.

It was reassuring, in a way, even if it was pointless because his wings never failed him after that. Not until now.

Now, when the cloudy sky spun above him and his stomach gave one final lurch-

Now, when his body hit the trees, branches and boughs snapping under him as he crashed through the foliage, sharp twigs scratching at his skin in a pain that was nothing compared to his head, his ribs, his shoulder-

Now, as the ground rushed up to meet him and this time, this time Dan was not there to catch him. No one was.

In the seconds before everything went dark, he felt something snap. It was not his leg.

**2.**

Gavin liked the alps.

He liked the way Michael’s cheeks and nose turned red in the cold but the rest of him got all pale until his freckles stood out even more, and the way he’d jam his hands under his armpits and hop about like a rabbit.

He liked the way Ryan kept an arm around his shoulders whenever they were outdoors, tucking him in close to his side. Gavin wasn’t all that cold, not really, he didn't have exposed ears like the others and when he fluffed up his feathers it kept most of the heat in. But it felt good to be held.

He hated the cold, generally, but up here it was different. It was _proper_ cold, not wet-rainy-grey cold like England. Real cold with snow and thin, sharp air that burned his lungs when he breathed in and left his mouth in misty streams when he spoke.

The only part that sucked was when Geoff finally got the door of the lodge open and they stepped into the warmth and his gag reflex kicked in with a vengeance. The abrupt change in temperature had him doubling over, retching, Ryan’s hand rubbing soothing circles on his back until it died down.

“How many times do you think you’re gonna throw up while we’re here?” Michael asked, ruffling Gavin’s hair as he stepped past him and stripped off the big, furry coat he’d been wearing that made him look a bit like a Yeti, or maybe Chewbacca.

“My money’s on twelve,” Geoff chimed in, as he headed deeper into the lodge, flicking lights on as he went.

Ryan pulled Gavin upright, one hand still massaging his shoulder. “No, you’ve got to be mathematical about it. We’re only here for one night, so once more for when we leave, then the few times he’ll get in and out of the warm car. That’s five maximum.”

“Ryan the algebra guy,” Gavin murmured, and then burped in his ear until Ryan pulled a face and pushed him away.

It was true, though, that they would not be here long - everything going according to plan, the heist would take place tomorrow and then they would be out. Gavin felt an excited thrum, low in his belly - he didn’t get nervous on jobs much, not anymore, but this was a big one. Bigger than most others they’d pulled. He followed Geoff into the dining room where he was laying out a map of the area on the big table. As they crowded around it, in the wood-panelled, lamplit room with snow falling gently in the silent cold outside, it felt a little like they were in a spy movie, like this was some big, secret operation that would change the fate of the world.

Maybe it would.

The target was a formula being couriered to a top-security research station high up in the mountains. Few knew of its existence and even fewer of the secrets that were being transported there. Even Gavin didn’t understand much about it, only that they had been developing some sort of drug that affected the animalistic tendencies of hybrids; the extent to which zoological instinct warred with human rationality. It was all a little more X-Men or James Bond than the other heists they’d pulled, but what he did know was that these scientific secrets were worth a hell of a lot of money and there were buyers who’d pay a hefty price for the Fake AH Crew to retrieve them.

“There’s only one route up the mountain,” Geoff said, finger tracing a path across the map’s surface. “That’s where the armoured truck will go. Once it gets to the base that’s it, there’s no way we can break in there, the place is locked tight as dicks. Which means we need to stop the truck before it arrives.”

“I’ll be waiting up the road,” Michael said, folding his arms. “Plant explosives, blow it just as the truck approaches; they’ll stop when they see the blast.”

Geoff nodded - they’d planned all this already but it paid to go over it. There could be no slip ups, not on a job this big.

“Team Crazy Mad will be up ahead. Ray, Jack and I will come up from behind. Pin the truck in between us. And Gavin….” his eyes drifted over and Gavin licked his lips a touch nervously. “A lot rests on your shoulders here, buddy.”

Gavin nodded. He normally worked intel - the benefits of having wings and being able to keep watch on things from the sky - but rarely had that role been as important as it was here.

“I need to go up the mountain,” he recited, “And see how many guards are up on the road.”

Geoff nodded. “You need to be our eyes and ears because that slope is steep as fuck; without you keeping an eye on things we won’t know if anyone’s about to come down on our asses.”

“That flight path is going to take you really close to the research base,” Jack warned. “So you have to be careful.”

“I know.” He straightened up a bit, wings stretching out before settling against his shoulders as usual. “I can do it.”

“Good,” Geoff said, and rolled up the map. “Let’s go get ready then.”

Much as they laughed and joked about things, heists were dangerous and they did actually take them seriously, especially ones as big as this. The day before any operation they tended to head off and take some time alone to prepare and gather themselves. 

But today as they drifted out of the room, Gavin noticed Jack lingering behind, looking at Geoff as though he wanted to say something.

He wasn’t sure why he paused outside the door to listen. Maybe because he was just naturally a nosy asshole, maybe because he had noticed Jack watching him over the last few days, something speculative in his gaze that made Gavin almost uneasy.

 _Eavesdroppers seldom hear good of themselves_. It rang in his mind as he stopped outside the door, peering through the small crack where it wasn’t quite closed. Watched as Geoff snapped an elastic band around the rolled up map and turned to Jack with raised eyebrows.

“Everything alright?”

Jack nodded, but he frowned. “You sure he’s up to this?”

“Who?” Geoff asked.

“Gavin.”

“He’ll be fine.” But something hesitant in his tone, something stiff. “We’ve done shit like this before.”

“Not on this scale. It’ll be dangerous. There’ll be guards around that base - if someone sees him…”

“Gav’s not actually an idiot. He’ll be careful.”

“I know, I just… it’s Gavin, you know?”

 _It’s Gavin_. What the bloody hell was that supposed to mean? Gavin turned away from the door. He felt peculiar - not quite nervous, not quite offended, but unsettled. Like his stomach was full of small hard stones; uncomfortable and out of sorts. And somewhere deep inside, hurt.

He had been careless before, he knew, on heists. Lapses in judgement, or coordination, or memory, but never anything big enough for all of them to be in danger. 

Biting his lip, he flexed his wings. Tried to shake off the uneasy feeling as he strode down the corridor towards his room to go over the maps of the area, prepare himself for tomorrow.

Jack’s fears were misplaced. He was not going to stuff this up. He was not going to let his crew - his _boyfriends_ \- down.

**3.**

“You’re fucking useless,” was the first thing Michael ever said to Gavin.

To be fair, he had just sort of fucked up horribly; it was his job to be waiting outside a sixth-storey window to grab Michael - the newest addition to the crew, he’d joined while Gavin was away back in England - as he escaped. Except he’d miscounted and was waiting outside the fifth storey instead and Michael had had to jump and get caught mid air, which was not a fun experience for either of them.

“You’re _stupid_ ,” Michael repeated as he was set down on the ground at last - legs wobbling, nearly falling over as he reached out to brace himself against the nearest wall - “Jesus fucking Christ can you not fucking _count_?”

“It’s fine,” Gavin assured him, a little shaky himself because catching someone out of the air was a lot harder than it looked. “Cats always land on their feet, so.”

“I’ll show you where my fucking foot is going in a minute,” Michael spat - and Gavin squawked, taking to the air again as Michael swiped at him, claws out. 

“Michael, no, it wasn’t my fault - I got confused about whether the ground floor counted as level one!” 

“ _You are actually useless_ ,” Michael roared - and Gavin squeaked as he lunged at him again.  

They were words Michael would repeat over and over across the years, even after he warmed up to Gavin after their bad start. But slowly the venom faded from them and it became something almost _fond_ -

“You’re fucking useless,” after he forgot the address to the rendezvous point and ended up on the complete opposite side of the city-

“You’re fucking useless,” with a laugh when he managed to trip over his own feet, slam into Ryan’s bike and knock it over, smashing the mirror-

“Jesus Christ, Gav, you’re useless as shit,” the first time he attempted to blow Ray, failed epically, and spent five minutes dry heaving while the other two lads nearly killed themselves laughing at him (to be fair, the laughing was mostly to cover the awkwardness, of which there was much. The first times as more than a pair of two were always awkward).

But he wasn’t. Useless, that was, and he knew it - he was, in fact, very, very useful. Winged hybrids in the crime industry always were; they came few and far between and there was a lot of shit they could do that no one else could. When it came to intel, or infiltration, or any number of recon jobs, it helped to have someone in the sky.

They all played their roles in the crew and his role was flying - he’d gotten them out of a pinch more than once, been the kingpin of several heists and operations.

So it didn’t get to him, really - because there was almost always smile or a laugh in Michael’s voice when he said it. He showed his affection through teasing and it was just the same as when he called Ray a nerd, or Ryan a psychopath - it slipped out as easily as _you’re my boi_ or _Team Nice Dynamite, Gav_ -

_Fucking useless, you’re fucking useless-_

**4.**

Gavin Free was falling, falling, falling.

Things had been going well at first. Everyone was in position. The explosive charges were set, Michael and Ryan checking in periodically through their earpieces. Jack, Geoff, Ray in position, and Gavin-

Gavin was working harder than he ever had before. It was difficult to fly up here. The air was thin and frigid and he couldn’t dress heavily, because too many layers of clothes made manoeuvring in the air hard. So there he was, freezing his nob off, and they had taken a lot of things into account in this plan but somehow, somehow they had failed to consider the weather.

There was a storm coming.

The clouds at the edge of the horizon were so dark they were almost black, the faint, distant rumble of thunder echoing occasionally through the air. It had sprinkled briefly for a few moments early that morning, but now it had stopped. Snow crunched underfoot. The winds were the worst part. Terrible, buffeting winds that were not so bad at ground level but a turbulent mess higher up.

(“You sure you’re alright to do this?” Ray had asked, that morning - catching Gavin’s upper arm in an easy grip, light and reassuring.

“I’m fine,” Gavin had told him, but they both knew he didn’t have much of a choice. He bitched out now and the whole operation would have to be called off.) 

And he’d been doing fine.

Flying up the mountainside, wings aching with the strain of working double time against the elements. Cold and tired but running on the buzz of adrenaline and a determination not to let down the crew - and he was fine, _fine_. He kept to the trees and reported back when he saw some armed guards who were tailing the truck pause along the road, warning the others so they could stop and take them out.  

He headed further up the mountain - and that’s when he saw it, a platoon of vans, standing out like fat black roaches on the white blank face of the mountain.  He was quite close to the research base by now, low walls and guard towers dotting the landscape, and small dark figures crawled like ants around the zone, patrolling. He ducked closer, alighting in the nearest tree - and his heart sank as he realised who the vans belonged to. The military, or the government maybe; either way the Fake AH Crew were out of their depth. They could stand up against a lot of things but not operatives of this level.

“-avin… -ere are you?” Geoff’s voice crackled in his ear, undercut with static.

They had to call things off.

Some of the vans were already making their way back down the mountain, and Gavin’s eyes widened as he realised the scale of the weapons they had - artillery guns, repeating turrets - heavy-duty equipment that even Michael and his bombs couldn’t hope to compete with.

“Call it off,” Gavin said. “There’s too many - we’re outnumbered, there’s no way we can pull this off.”

No response from Geoff. Nothing but the crackle of static in his ear and _fuck_ , he was too high up, he had to get back down to them, to warn them-

Launching himself from the tree, he started to fly back down the road, only for a massive gust of wind to strike him. Gavin had weathered the elements before but even he couldn’t face off against this force of nature; the strong gale swept him sideways. He flapped frantically, trying to right himself, but it was too late - he had been blown into sight of the military and he heard them begin to shout as they noticed him.

The winds let up a little and he managed to recover. Ducked as gunfire began to ring out around him - a heavy blast whistled past him, some sort of explosive that collided with the trees behind him and sent shockwaves rippling through the air around him. Coupled with the strong winds it sent him spiralling backwards over the side of the mountain.

He could have righted himself.

He could have righted himself, had he not smashed into the side of the cliff-face. He felt something crunch and pop in his shoulder as it struck the hard rock - pain exploded in his head, his ribs - and his vision was swimming now, he was dazed. Felt like something had crushed his skull as he fell, limp like a broken doll. He was too dizzy, too confused to so much as flap his wings. Could feel the wind and the whiplash ripping through his feathers, as though they’d tear the very wings off his back. He spiralled, spiralled- crashed through trees and thickets and branches sharp like needles-

Down, down-

Falling. Hit the ground. Everything stopped.

**5.**

The world was white. The cold settling around him like a blanket. He floated, weightless.

“You are beautiful,” Ryan said - his voice a low thrum so close to Gavin’s ear he could practically feel it vibrating through him, making him shiver.

He was lying face down, face buried in his arms - Ryan trailing kisses down his back. He squeezed his eyes shut when fingers started working through the thin, downy feathers that covered his upper back, thickening as they spread from his spine out towards his wings.

“Stunning.” The word was mouthed against the skin at the back of his neck. “Enchanting… magnificent… _exquisite_.”

“Ryan the vocabulary guy,” Gavin managed to force out, feeling flustered by the words spilling from Ryan’s mouth, no less sincere for their sentimentality. 

Lips pressed to the sensitive point where his wings connected to his back, the sharp planes of his shoulder blades - he shuddered, squirming, Ryan’s hands tightening around his waist. “Ryan-” 

“I mean it, you know. You’re incredible.” And there was something soft in it, almost apologetic - the five of them had been shitting on him all day, sour after a mark of theirs - a weapons dealer who’d skipped out on a trade with them - had managed to get away. Gavin had been an easy target; he’d let the guy slip past him by accident and then failed to find him afterwards. He didn’t normally let their ribbing get to him, but Ryan - lovely Ryan, who for all his violence in the field somehow managed to always be the gentlest with him, never let his teasing go too far - Ryan had seemed concerned. Had gotten him alone as soon as possible to make it up to him.

Gavin felt his face grow warm. It was embarrassing, sometimes, how easily simple praise made him come undone -  likely something to do with his crippling self doubt, a fear of rejection that he hid well most of the time - squashed down so it was barely felt even by himself.

His breath hitched, shivering at the attention being lavished on his wings-

Soft fingers running through the feathers-

The world was white. There were hands on his wings now- pushing, prodding, _pain_. The gentle touch, the fuzzy dream state faded away. Ryan’s low voice in his ear replaced by a biting, whistling wind, piercing his eardrums - he could hear gunfire, boots, shouting, distant as though he was underwater.

And rough hands - pulling at his wings - pain, _pain_ , he felt like they were being ripped off - everything _hurt_. He couldn’t move. The hands withdrew but the pain didn’t stop. He felt someone pick him up, sling him easily over their shoulder like he weighed next to nothing. Felt his wings hang loosely from his body, limp and out of control - _pain_ -

He let himself slide into unconsciousness.

**6.**

Gavin woke with a lurch. He’d been falling in a dream.

Even as he shocked himself awake his eyes refused to open. For a horrible moment he was paralysed. His mind alert but his body unable to move - he seemed to struggle against some invisible bonds, heavy and sluggish like his limbs were weighed down by something - but finally he forced his eyes open and a ceiling swam into view overhead, unfamiliar until he realised it was the lodge.

 _Pain_ , was the first thing he registered. _Pain, pain, pain_.

It seemed like there was no part of him that didn’t hurt. A dull throbbing in the side of his head, a sharper ache in his shoulder and ribs. But the worst was in his wings - he was lying on his stomach, he realised, and even though he was putting no weight on them, the right one felt like it was being crushed.

He tried to sit up and instantly regretted it; pain stabbed through his side and he collapsed forward again, a hoarse cry tearing itself from his lips before he could quite stop it.

“Gavin?” Footsteps sounded from somewhere behind him. He couldn’t move to turn and look. 

The next thing he knew there were arms wrapped around him, tugging him gently upright, pulling him against a broad chest. He felt limp, ragdoll-heavy, like every last ounce of energy had been sapped from him. He couldn’t have held up his own weight if he wanted to.

“Gavin,” Jack said, again, “Thank God. How do you feel?”

“Like crap,” he replied, or tried to - the words came out in barely more than a whisper, even that meagre effort exhausting him. Jack heard, though - thank God for heightened senses.

“You’re pretty banged up,” he said. “But you’ll be right - we were just worried you might not wake up. Hit your head pretty damn hard.”

“He’s got a skull of fucking concrete, man,” Michael’s voice rang out from somewhere behind them. “Gives ‘thickheaded’ a whole new meaning.”

A slight smile tugged at Gavin’s lips as he felt Michael settle on the bed next to them. Then two more - Ray and Ryan, crowding onto the mattress as well as they could. The initial panic of waking up was dissipating; he still felt sore and exhausted but he was here, he was safe.

“What happened?” he asked, trying to piece together exactly how he’d gotten here. He remembered the mountain and-

 _Falling_ -

Suddenly his stomach dropped. It hadn’t been a dream. That sick lurch deep in his belly - the sensation of _plummeting_ , helpless, surrounded by nothing - that was real. That happened.

“You managed to fall down the mountain,” Jack explained. “I’m not sure what happened - do you remember? It might’ve been the storm, or maybe the military… either way, we found you lying there bleeding, half-frozen to death. You fell a pretty long fucking way, I think you crashed right down the road a bit.”

“We barely got you out of there without getting got ourselves,” Ray piped up. “Turns out the like, fucking Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or whatever were there to guard the base. They were nearly on top of you when we dragged you out. The heist went to shit, naturally, we just hauled ass out of there.”

Gavin swallowed. “Tried to warn you,” he started - the burning shame of _failure_ setting in because _he’d fucked it up -_ stopped them pulling it off - but a hand settled in his hair, stroking comfortingly down to the nape of his neck.

“It’s okay,” Jack murmured - his voice a low thrum against Gavin’s cheek where it was pressed against his chest. “It’s okay. Not your fault. We all got out alive.”

The words soothed and settled something in Gavin. He slumped against Jack, exhausted, eyes fluttering shut again as Jack continued to toy with his hair.

His wings twitched at his back, still sore, and he tried to stretch them out a little, fearing they were cramping - only to pull up short and nearly overbalance as he realised that his right wing was bound against his back, folded up into place and strapped down tight. He couldn’t move it at all. _What…?_

He let out a low whimper of pain as he tried to move it again and it _hurt_ , and the next thing he knew a hand was curling gently around his jaw, turning his face, and there was a cup being pushed up against his lips.

“Drink this,” Ryan said, softly. “Then sleep.”

He obeyed - nearly choked when careful fingers prodded a pill of some sort into his mouth as well - but whatever they’d given him kicked in almost instantly, the pain seeming to fade away as the pull of sleep tugged again at his weary bones.

He was dimly aware of Jack lowering him down to the pillow. Of a warm presence curling up by his side - _Ray_ , he thought, recognising the other’s touch - of four sets of lips pressing soft kisses to his hair, his cheeks, anywhere they could reach.

Something felt off, something felt wrong - and it hit him with a jolt, like an electric shock-

 _Geoff, where’s Geoff?_  

-but moments later the drugs kicked in and everything swam away as he passed out.

**7.**

One year ago Ryan and Ray were kidnapped by a rival gang.

This was when they were all swimming in an odd middle ground. They were together - sort of - everyone but Ryan, except sometimes Ryan had a thing with Geoff, and occasionally Michael, and they’d all talked about adding him but none of them ever quite worked up the courage to actually do it.

Then they were taken, the two of them. Snatched off the road while they were on their way to meet the others at the rendezvous point. It took almost a full day to track them down and find them - the kidnappers were a small bunch, not well known and not overly dangerous, but meticulous in their planning and in possession of some heavy ordnance.

Still. They found them, and came in guns blazing, and Gavin would always remember the moment he broke into the abandoned boathouse and saw the two of them sitting there, tied back to back, bruised and beaten and bloody.

“Took your sweet time, Vav,” was the first thing Ray said to him, grinning through a split lip, but his ears were almost completely flat against his head and it had struck Gavin, then, that that was the first time he had ever seen Ray afraid. Startled at times, yes, but not scared - not like this - and something about it had made him feel odd inside, like he’d swallowed too much cold water. 

But he’d shaken it off because they were _okay_ , and he’d untied them and grabbed Ray and hauled him close. Kissed him frantically and drawn his wings around him like a shield, only loosening up when Ray started to wince as the tight embrace pressed on a few of his wounds.

He remembered the days after that vividly. It wasn’t the first time one of them had been in danger but it was the first time they’d been _taken_ , and all of them had fussed over Ray. Wouldn’t let him out of their sight, watched him intently because they knew he had a tendency to stay quiet even when things were eating at him.

And it was during that time that they reached out to Ryan - because the five of them were living together practically all the time now, though they still each owned their separate apartments, and when shit got bad it was reassuring to be able to be with one another. To watch Ray and know he was okay, know that he was healing. But Ryan had headed off immediately back to his own place and when Michael and Gavin went over to check on him they found him sitting on the floor of his bathroom struggling to give himself stitches with his non-dominant hand, and it was then that Michael kissed him - angrily, nearly poking an eye out on one of Ryan’s horns with how quickly he flung himself at him - and then dragged him back with them to join the others.

Something settled after that, between the six of them, and every injury they sustained thereafter was dealt with as a group. Gavin remembered those times well, mostly because they were _better_ \- because he’d done it too, clumsy self-care while locked in a bathroom, back in England when he was young and foolish and in over his head. And even the times Geoff had patched him up, when they were living together just the two of them - it couldn’t compare to having all five of the men he loved there, the reassurance of knowing he wasn’t alone.

He might remember every time he got hurt - but he also remembered every time after, when he’d return home to soft kisses and gentle hands.

He did not remember the moments after he fell.

He didn’t remember lying in the snow, blood staining the little crystals of ice around him a stark and terrible red. Turning blue with cold or the way he was sprawled like a fallen mannequin, all at odd angles. Little bird with broken wings.

He wasn’t awake to hear Jack’s shout - more of a roar - when he found him, or see the way he shoved Geoff aside so roughly that he fell to his hands and knees in the snow, vying to get to him first. 

He did not remember the five times he woke up on the way back to the lodge.

**8.**

Severe concussion. Ribs fractured in three places. Deep bruising to the shoulder.

Broken wing.

The days after the heist were all a bit of a blur, a daze of painkillers and sleeping too much and lying curled in Michael’s lap across the backseat of the car as they drove back down to the city; a too-long road trip that he honestly didn’t register much of. 

But by the time they got home he was more awake, more alert. The pain was a constant dull presence at the back of his mind, unpleasant but not unbearable.

What was unbearable was Geoff.

They hadn’t seen much of each other lately, due to driving in separate cars, and it wasn’t until they returned home that Gavin noticed the tension. The way their leader was oddly withdrawn, avoiding Gavin - avoiding _Jack_ \- constantly heading out on business alone or with Ryan. Drinking alone whenever he wasn’t.

Having been confined to bedrest, it was a few days until Gavin managed to get up and about enough to take a stand against it, and take a stand he did, cornering Geoff against the minibar in the kitchen of their house only a few minutes after he’d come in from wherever-the-fuck he’d been. He looked tired, drawn. There was a spot of blood on his cuff. That sort of job, then.

Geoff must have noticed him approaching but he didn’t turn to look at him, knocking back the rest of his glass instead, and something about his avoidance made Gavin suddenly uneasy. The flitting thought crossed his mind - _is he angry I botched the heist? -_ the sort of crawling worm of doubt that always rose up in him when he had too much time to dwell on his mistakes. 

“Greetings Geoffrey,” he said, a little unsure how to approach, and Geoff’s eyes did flick to him then. Pale and tired and something almost guilty in them. 

“Hey Gavvers,” he replied. 

Gavin leaned in to kiss him. The peck Geoff gave his lips was light and almost unenthusiastic, and when his hand rose a little it hovered over Gavin’s hip but didn’t quite touch him.

“Can I have a drink?” Gavin asked then - maybe bevs would make him open up a little - but Geoff shook his head.

“Ask again when you’re not on painkillers, buddy.”

“You suck,” Gavin said, without heat, sticking his tongue out a bit. 

Geoff’s lips twitched a little, but he didn’t play along. Just turned back to pour himself another measure of liquor and said, tiredly, “You should be in bed.” 

“I’ve spent all bloody day in bed. My muscles are going to at… atri… what’s the word?”

“Atrophy,” Geoff supplied, and rolled his eyes. “Muscles, what muscles? You’re a twig.”

“How do you think I fly, Geoff? Need a lot of strength to lift yourself off the ground, you know.”

“You won’t be flying anywhere, not for a while,” Geoff replied with raised eyebrows - and Gavin opened his mouth to retort only to snap it shut again as he realised Geoff was right.

It hadn’t really hit him until now that his wing was actually _broken_ \- that he wouldn’t be able to use it for a little while - it was still tied down in place, folded against his back while it healed, and he frowned as he realised it would be a good month, if not more, until he could even unfurl it without worrying about damaging it more.

The thought was suddenly very discomfiting, because he couldn’t remember going a day without flying since all those years ago when he’d broken his leg, and now it had been nearly a week. He’d been too zonked out on painkillers to get restless about it, but now as his dosage eased off it was starting to get to him a little. 

Geoff was watching him, that odd look crossing his face again, and he turned away, raising his glass to his lips once more.

“Go get some rest, Gavin.”

“I don’t want to rest,” he blurted out, “I want to spend time with you. It’s been ages; you keep going out to work.”

“Yeah, because I need to keep my - _our_ \- fucking empire running, Gav,” Geoff snapped, and Gavin flinched a little at the harshness of his tone.

Geoff looked stricken, but he didn’t apologise and he didn’t expand. Just raised the bottle again, and Gavin turned and left quickly.

He ran into Ryan almost instantly; the man was emerging from the bathroom. He had come in when Geoff did but went to wash up right away. Water was dripping from his horns and the tips of his hair. He caught Gavin by the shoulders as he tried to rush by, but loosened his grip immediately when Gavin yelped at the pressure against his bruises.

“Sorry, sorry - you okay? What’s up?" 

“Nothing,” Gavin snapped, but Ryan grabbed his arm when he tried to get past, pulling him back.

“Gavin.” His voice was gentle but stern. “What the fuck happened?” 

Gavin glanced over his shoulder before he could stop himself, towards the living room. Ryan’s eyes tracked the movement and his face softened as he seemed to realised who Gavin had just been speaking to. 

“Is he mad at me?” Gavin asked, before he could quite stop himself.

Ryan released his arm. “Oh, Gavin, no. Of course he’s not mad at you.” 

“Then why…?” 

Ryan’s hand moved to cup his cheek and Gavin found himself leaning into the touch. 

“It’s hard being the leader,” Ryan said quietly. “Especially when the people you’re leading are your… lovers. Boyfriends. People you care about. It hits him hard, when things go wrong.” His gaze trailed down Gavin’s bruised face, settled on his bandaged wing. “Especially this badly wrong.”

Gavin frowned a little. And he knew, deep inside, that what had happened wasn’t anyone’s fault - they couldn’t have known the higher-level government operatives would be there - so the only thing Geoff should have been blaming himself for was giving Gavin such a hard flying job. But he’d thought he could handle it. Which didn’t make it Geoff’s fault - made it _Gavin_ who had let him down.

It didn’t matter now. What was done was done.

“I need to talk to him,” he said, turning back around, but a strong arm hooked around his chest and tugged him back. 

“He won’t listen to you,” Ryan said, with such certainty in his voice that Gavin wilted a little. “He needs to work through it by himself - needs to sort things out with Jack first. Give him some space.” 

 _Jack_? Gavin thought, a little confused. Then their conversation from earlier came back to him and his frown deepened, because Jack - Jack had doubted him, had been right to doubt him, and what - was he angry with Geoff now? Because Geoff hadn’t listened to him when he thought Gavin couldn’t handle it? 

He bit his lip. His gut twisted.

 _Have to fix this_. 

Except if there was one thing Gavin couldn’t handle, it was genuine conflict with people he loved, and when he saw Jack later that evening and opened his mouth - his courage failed. He wasn’t sure what he was afraid of. Being reprimanded, he supposed - for what, he wasn’t sure. Or maybe, maybe, disappointment - some acknowledgement in Jack’s eyes that he had been right, that Gavin wasn’t cut out for the job they’d given him - perhaps he was, deep down, concerned that _he_ would be blamed.

It was ridiculous, he knew - irrational. 

But it still put him off, so he let it sit. 

He let it sit as the days and nights dragged on and Geoff went out on job after job after job. Started spending nights out there too, by himself or occasionally taking Ray or Ryan with him. Gavin couldn’t remember the last time all six of them shared a bed. 

The others must have noticed - _must have_ \- but they didn’t bring it up. And as he healed, slowly, slowly, it was surrounded by the rest of them. Jack helping him walk whenever his ribs started acting up; Ryan running him through slow stretches and exercises to get his wing and shoulder back in shape. Michael and Ray fetching him whatever he needed when he was too tired, drinks or games or soft light kisses.

No Geoff.

It made him feel odd - like a puzzle with one piece missing, because before it had been _just_ Geoff, the two of them in a shitty little apartment patching each other up. The burn of strong alcohol over their wounds instead of any sort of antiseptic. Cursing through gritted teeth as they picked broken glass and shrapnel from their skin with tweezers. 

 **9.**  

Geoff was gone again when Gavin finally went back out into the field. His ribs were still healing, but it had been a couple of weeks and they were better than they had been, so he came along in the car with Ray and Michael when they went out on a hit. Stayed in the passenger seat watching a door for them. 

Nothing dramatic happened, and even that simple outing exhausted him, but there was an odd sort of excitement about them when they got the job done and came back. 

“We missed you,” Michael said, abruptly, when they got back home - “It’s not the same without you out there with us.” 

Gavin smiled a bit, but he was not the only one who had been missing from their usual routine of crew work lately. It was Geoff, too - Geoff who even now was out somewhere. Making deals and taking names and not coming home at night. 

“I missed it too,” he said. He was tired but there was still a buzz of adrenaline running through him, and when Ray leaned forward to kiss him he responded eagerly. Let his hands trail up the other’s arms to push his hoodie off his shoulders. Tugged pointedly at the hem of his shirt.

Ray paused, pulling back. He licked his lips, eyes dark, pupils blown - but hesitant. “You, uh, you sure you’re healed enough?” 

“Sure,” Gavin replied, impatiently, leaning forward to kiss him again. Then yelped as arms wrapped around his waist and tugged him back.

“I’m _not_ sure,” Michael growled in his ear - Gavin struggled half-heartedly in his grip. His wings twitched automatically, wanting to pull free from their bindings but unable to.

“Michael, I’m fine Michael,” he protested - then squeaked when suddenly there was an arm under his knees and he was being lifted. He pushed at Michael’s chest, squawking. “Put me down, you pleb!” 

“But I’m taking you exactly where you want to go,” Michael said - and Gavin stopped struggling when he realised the other was carrying him towards the bedroom. Ray trailed along behind, and when Michael deposited Gavin gently on the bed he wound his arms around the cat’s waist and pulled him into a slow, languid kiss. 

Gavin watched them, swallowing hard. They broke apart and Michael turned to him. Reached forward and pressed a finger over Gavin’s lips when he tried to start and speak. 

“Shh,” he said, something like a smirk tugging at the side of his mouth. “You just relax, okay? Let us take care of you.” 

Gavin nodded and Michael smiled. Settled in front of him on the bed, Ray draping himself over Michael’s side and starting to press kisses down his neck.

They took things slow - slow and careful, both of them touching him gently, carefully like they were afraid they’d somehow damage him. Darting soft touches like butterflies against his skin - and he was glad of it, because for all he’d insisted he was fine, his ribs still hurt when he breathed too fast and too deeply, and his wings - 

He was quiet in bed, he knew that, but he tended to express himself in movements anyway. Grasping hands or arching back or his wings, most of all - he’d let them stretch and flex normally, but with his right one broken and bound down, he was pulled up short every time he tried to move it. Had to focus hard on keeping it still. 

He still tired easily, injured as he was, and by the time they were done and cleaned up he was already dozing off. He felt Ray ruffle his hair and pull the blankets up over him, pressing a kiss to his cheek before he switched off all the lights but one lamp and left the room. 

He might have slept. He wasn’t sure. But presently he became aware of someone standing in the room, watching him. 

He opened his eyes the tiniest sliver and realised it was Geoff. He was standing by the side of the room, eyes lidded and tired and surrounded by dark bags. There was dust on his suit, and blood. Traces of gunpowder. He’d come right in from a job, then. 

Gavin wanted to sit up, to greet him. But he couldn’t move. His limbs felt heavy and lethargic and he knew it was the painkillers he’d taken earlier; they made him drowsy. He couldn’t even lift a hand to pat the bed next to him, to invite Geoff over. 

The other man’s presence was reassuring, though, and he let his eyes slip shut again, intending to go back to sleep, when he heard the door open. Caught Geoff’s slight intake of breath as he jumped. 

“It’s just me,” Ryan’s voice said. The bed creaked as he sat down next to Gavin, and then he felt a hand running gently through his hair. “He sleeps a lot lately.” 

“Best form of medicine,” Geoff replied - something tight in his voice. 

He heard Ryan sigh. “Geoff… he misses you. You can’t just avoid him.”

“I know.” Geoff sounded pained. “I know, I know - but _fuck_ , Ryan, I can’t. I can’t look at him and know I did that.”

“Jesus Christ, Geoff, you didn’t do _any_ of this. It was an accident, a freak accident - blame the fucking weather if you want, just don’t blame yourself.” 

“I put him there, Ry. He’s my responsibility. He could have died.”

“We all could die, every time we go out on a job. We know the risks. Your self pity is doing no one any favours.” A slightly frozen pause. “What about Jack, then?”

Geoff exhaled heavily. “He’s angry with me.”

“No he’s not. Maybe he was before, but now he’s worried. We’re _all_ worried. Jack doesn’t blame you either.”

“He does. Maybe he won’t admit it, but he does.”

“God. There’s no way I can convince you this isn’t your fault, is there? Gavin will heal.” The hand withdrew from his hair and he heard Ryan get up and cross the room to where Geoff was. “He’ll heal, and he’ll be totally fine, there’ll be no lasting damage. And everyone will move on. You have to let yourself too.”

Silence fell for a moment, and Gavin managed to force his eyes open just enough to see Geoff bring a hand up to cup Ryan’s face, letting the tension leach from his shoulders for a moment as they kissed. But it wasn’t long before he turned away again, wrapping his arms around himself.

“When he heals,” Geoff murmured. “When he’s okay again.”

Ryan sighed, but seemed to realise arguing was fruitless.

“You’ll see,” he said. “He’ll be right back to normal and you’ll realise the only person who needs to forgive you is yourself.”

**10.**

Wings were not meant to be folded all the time - even if he wasn’t flying, Gavin was used to shaking them out, stretching them periodically. Preening them every evening. 

By the time three weeks passed, he was getting antsy and restless. Being grounded was no fun and he was itching to get back in the air again - or even to just _stretch_ his wings.

But he couldn’t - broken wings were perilous, perilous things. There was a fine line between a wound that would heal and one that could keep you out of the air forever, and he didn’t want to risk damaging things further.

So he bore it, and even as the bruises faded from his shoulder and his ribs healed up, he kept the damaged wing bound against his back. He eased himself back into crew duties, riding along with the others whenever they went out.

Geoff was still distant, but as the visible signs of Gavin’s injuries began to disappear, he slowly came back to them - spent more nights at home. Still wouldn’t quite meet Gavin’s eyes, or Jack’s - but he interacted with the others well and often enough, so Gavin resigned himself to patience.

One month passed - then six weeks - and finally all the pain had faded, so after a few days of obsessively googling things like ‘ _radial fracture’_ and ‘ _broken wing healing time_ ’ he at last, at last determined himself to be healed.

The others were out - he hadn’t gone with them this time, determining himself to be of no use and not wanting to sit in the car on such a hot day - so he found himself alone in the backyard, slowly unbinding his wing.

Getting it free was a ridiculous relief and when he stretched it out, slowly, carefully, he let out a loud and rather embarrassing sort of groan. It took him a long time to sort out the feathers, which were mussed and dishevelled after so long in a bind - but finally he felt normal again, balanced.

He sat under the warm sun for some time, stretching and flexing both wings, getting himself back in the habit.

 _And now_ , he thought, with a slight thrill - _now I fly_.

He bounced to his feet and moved over to the low shed in the corner of their yard, where they stored assorted rubbish and also some spare ordnance, and rather precariously stacked some plastic garden chairs up next to it before climbing up onto the tin roof. It was easier to fly from a high point than take off from the ground - you needed less push-off momentum - and he stepped up to the edge and spread his wings and-

That’s where it went to shit, really.

It was a small drop, two metres at the very most, but suddenly, looking down - his stomach _lurched_ and he felt sick and very, very dizzy - like the world was spinning around him, like things were moving even though they weren’t-

He was going to throw up.

He stumbled back and sat down heavily on the roof, head whirling. Suddenly he was breathing too fast and didn’t know why and everything wouldn’t stop _spinning_ -

Spinning and spinning like he was free falling and everything was whirling around him and he was going to _hit the ground-_

He didn’t realise he was hyperventilating until he choked on a gasp and retched, doubling over - dry heaving and gagging as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried desperately, desperately to feel grounded again. Braced his hands against the too-hot metal of the shed roof and dragged in harsh breaths through his nose.

 _I am not falling,_ he thought.

It still felt like he was.

Gavin wasn’t sure how he managed to get down from the roof, but the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, hands pressed flat to the warm pavement. _I am on solid ground._

The nausea faded away. He came back to himself and thought _what the fuck was that_.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong - he didn’t know why that had happened, except now when he closed his eyes he felt dizzy again. Couldn’t stop reliving that terrible lurching sensation - that helpless plummet as he’d dropped straight through _nothingness_.

His heart was pounding, so hard and fast he thought it might burst. And stupidly - still confused, still not quite sure what was happening - he got to his feet and beat his wings, pushing off the ground. It worked - they were stiff and sore from the bind but still functional - but he was barely two feet off the ground when it happened _again_ -

The world was tilting and he was falling, falling-

He landed in a stumble and collapsed to all fours, grazing his palms, ripping the knees of his jeans, the most overwhelming _panic_ overtaking him.

Something was wrong, wrong, very wrong - he was all apart. Something malfunctioning, he reasoned, in some oddly detached way - something wasn’t working right.

And as he lay there, gasping, bracing himself against the ground with gravel digging into his skin and the hot hot sun beating down against his back, trying to convince himself that the world wasn’t tilting around him like a fun-fair ride and he wasn’t about to slide and fall, fall, _fall_ -

For the first time in a very long time, he realised he was _afraid_.

**11.**

Gavin had a gun pointed at him for the first time when he was nineteen. It was being held by a large, Scottish fellow - a dog of some kind, the specific breed Gavin couldn’t tell - who was not at all pleased to find a scrappy little teenager had been hired by someone he was in debt to to break into his hideout and steal the money he owed. 

Had Gavin any sense he would have been frightened. Perhaps frightened enough to break out of his burgeoning life of crime then and there. 

But as it was, he hadn’t much sense, and he wasn’t scared. Nervous, maybe, adrenaline building up in his stomach until he almost felt sick - but not afraid. 

He did not get shot that time, or the next dozen times after. But he did realise, in a rare moment of self-reflection some time after he moved to America and met Geoff, that he was _reckless_.

It was perhaps the only reason he was able to run with criminals as high-profile as the Fake AH Crew. They got into some intense shit, and he was probably in a little over his head - but part of what made him just as dangerous as the rest of them was his willingness to do pretty much anything at risk to his life. Jack called it a “concerning lack of self preservation” and Michael called it a “concerning lack of _fucking brain cells_ ” but all Gavin knew was that for a long time, for a very long time, he had not been scared of anything much.

There had been police chases and Michael’s shitty-ass driving nearly landing them in the river. Facing off against hired thugs with machine guns and grenade launchers. Explosions that cut close enough to singe his feathers - crouching in an old sewerage tunnel in the dark with Ryan, hand clapped over his mouth trying not to make a sound, light and noise and barking only a scant few metres away as the cops bore down on them with dogs and choppers. Nothing but pure _adrenaline_ racing through him - nerves, perhaps, but not real, deep, nauseating fear.

Once - once Gavin and Jack were playing decoy, a distraction for another mob boss while the others slipped in to take him out, except they got caught and the guy was a little more ruthless than they’d anticipated. Before he quite knew what was happening Gavin was being shoved to his knees, a hand in his hair viciously wrenching his head back, and the barrel of a gun was being forced into his mouth as Jack watched with eyes wide and horrified, because this was not part of the plan at all. 

Still not scared.

Still not scared, because he knew Ryan was watching them, sniping from the roof opposite, and if he threw up when a rifle shot rang out and the guy holding him collapsed backwards with a neat bullet hole in his forehead, it was only because the gun in his mouth had triggered his gag reflex.

The only thing that pushed him remotely close to fear were his deep-seated little rejection issues.

He had been scared when he kissed Jack, that first time, and the only reason he’d even worked up the courage to make a move was because he was bevved up and they’d all nearly died that day and were running on the thrill of a successful heist, and Gavin had slammed down his drink and told himself _don’t think about it_ and stumbled over to Jack. Grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked their lips together. And then, because life was against him and he was uncoordinated as hell, managed to trip over his own feet and had to grab at Jack’s beard to get his balance back. But Jack had laughed, and kissed him back, and Geoff had come up behind him and hugged him as well, sandwiching him between them - and over on the couch Michael and Ray looked on with a little too much interest, and that had been the start of something good.

He had been scared the first time he messed up a heist enough for it to go wrong. Not scared of the danger but of the others’ anger, because Michael had already screamed at him and Ryan hadn’t taken off his mask yet but kept _looking_ at him, something cold and disapproving in it, and now Geoff was sitting in the bathtub digging a bullet out of his leg with tweezers and Gavin was sort-of-maybe _freaking the fuck out_. Standing away from the others breathing too fast, wondering just how much they all hated him.

It was Ray who noticed and came to his side. Wrapped his arms around him and nuzzled at his neck and whispered, “It’s fine, dude, we all fuck up now and then.”

“Me more than most,” Gavin choked out, only half-joking, and Ray scoffed out a laugh against his skin.

“Yeah, but. You can make it up to us in other ways.”

Michael had glanced over at him then, and his face softened when he realised how upset Gavin looked. Ryan did too, taking off his mask to reveal he just looked worried, not angry, and Geoff beckoned Gavin over and demanded to hold his hand while Jack sewed him up. After that he was not quite so worried anymore when he messed things up, because everything healed, in time. 

 **12.**  

Gavin Free was broken, broken, broken. 

The others came back from that job and Michael’s eyes lit up when he noticed Gavin’s wings were unbound. 

“Dude,” he said, tail flicking with excitement, “You’re all healed up?” 

“Yeah,” Gavin replied, in a rather strained voice - he was sitting at the kitchen table, knee bouncing sporadically, hands shaking around the glass of water he’d been drinking to calm himself down. There was a faint, odd roaring at the back of his mind, as though two conch shells were fixed over his ears, the constant whisper of the ocean reaching him.

“Fucking sweet,” Michael said, “Now you can get back to doing your normal stuff in the crew.” 

Gavin opened his mouth - to say what, he wasn’t sure, maybe to tell them about the weird, strange thing that had happened - but then he saw Jack glance across at Geoff, something questioning in his eyes. And Geoff glanced back at him, and gave a small, tentative smile - and it was the closest thing to an intimate interaction the two of them had had in a while. Suddenly Gavin remembered Geoff’s words to Ryan all those weeks ago. 

 _When he heals. When he’s okay again_.

“I… yeah, I’m going to take it slowly for a bit though. Want to be careful,” he said, and forced a nervous sort of laugh.

“Gavin Free being _careful_?” Ryan asked, eyebrows rising. “That blow to your head did more damage than I thought.” 

“Shut up,” Gavin replied with a laugh, but felt a bit sick inside.

 _It’s okay. I can fix this. Maybe that was a fluke, I just tried too soon, too fast - the next time it won’t happen. I was just nervous. I’ll try it again later and it’ll be fine_. 

He tried it again later. 

It was not fine. 

Gavin hadn’t climbed a tree since he was six years old and scabby-kneed at his grandfather’s house, looking for swallows’ nests. Too small to fly, back then, yet still not scared of falling. 

He was braver at six than he was now. The tree was not high but when the time came to launch himself off he could not do it.

 _You are stupid,_ he thought, _you are stupid, stupid, stupid. Can’t you see that you’re not going to fall?_

And he knew, at the back of his mind, that it was irrational. That he would jump and he would flap his wings and he would land safely.

But the minute he looked down towards the ground - the hard, hard ground - his head began to spin and he gripped the branches of the tree so tightly that the rough bark dug into his palms, splinters pressing through his skin, and in his mind he was back on the mountain, hanging weightless in space, wings racketing uselessly about, pain rushing up to meet him-

(and Dan was not there to catch him now-)

He chickened out, eventually, and climbed back down, heart beating too-fast, too-fast. And over the next few weeks, he tried again and again. He tried from the ground, but could never get more than a few feet into the air without his chest starting to feel like it was closing up and the world starting to spin around him. He climbed onto the roof of the house and promptly had a panic attack, spent two hours curled up on the bathroom floor trying not to throw up while Ray pounded on the door demanding to know if he was alright. He played it off as feeling sick and the others bought it. Didn’t question why he suddenly walked everywhere instead of flying because they’d gotten used to it over the last two months while his wing was healing.

 _You should tell them_. A treacherous whisper at the back of his mind.

But he couldn’t. Didn’t know what to say. “Oh hey, I’m too scared to fly anymore.” He couldn’t. He was Gavin, reckless Gavin, Gavin who was not truly afraid of anything. He had faced gangs and guns and mobsters and some of the most dangerous criminals both here and across the pond. What was a little height?

And some part of him - some small part still insisted that he could just get over it.

Because that was what happened. They went out, and they got injured, and they came home and healed and everything went back to normal. 

Maybe it was just taking a little longer this time.

But still he tried, and tried again, thinking _this time it will work. This time I will jump and I will fly and I will see there is nothing to worry about_ \- but he couldn’t make himself do it, frozen in fear, too scared to make that final leap of faith.

He thought there might be something wrong in his brain. Did some googling, but there were too many technical concepts and things not quite yet understood even by the best of scientists - theories and neuromyths and diagrams he didn’t know how to read. He thought it might be simple, like the fall had rattled some connection that he just needed to switch back on and everything would be okay.

But he couldn’t find the answers he was looking for. Apparently it was not as easy as that. And he remained, head pounding from staring at a screen too long, MRI scans dancing behind closed eyelids. Wings waving gently by his sides, healed but useless - unsure, afraid, unable to understand anything more except _something is wrong with me._

_What is wrong with me?_

**13.**

****“Did you ever pull the wings off flies as a kid?” Michael asked.

This was shortly after Michael had started to warm up to him, when they were on that just-tentative cusp of friendship, still not quite used to each other yet, but getting there, getting there.

It was a scorching hot summer and the two of them had been left guarding a prisoner, a weedy little cockroach hybrid who seemed to have shrivelled in on himself in the heat of the shed. Gavin had been worried he might die of heatstroke before Geoff came back but Michael assured him it was fine. They’d chucked a bucket of water over him anyway.

“God, no,” Gavin replied, shivering at the very thought. “That’s… that’s bloody animal cruelty, Michael. You monster.” 

“Hey, I never said _I_ did it,” Michael said, with a swig of lukewarm beer. “My brothers used to, though. It was funny how easily they just popped off. I wonder if it’s the same for hybrids.” 

“Don’t talk about that, that makes me feel all weird,” Gavin replied, another shudder running down his spine. He flapped his wings a little, just to make sure they were still there, and Michael snorted. 

“Sorry. That’s probably, like, the most horrifying thing in the world to you, right?”

“I don’t think you’d like it if I started talking about chopping the damn tails off things,” Gavin pointed out. “Or de-clawing. That’s cutting off the first knuckle right?” 

Michael nodded, mouth twisting a little in distaste. “Yeah, you’re right. Ugh.”

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence for a moment, watching the roach. He shuddered on the hot floor and Gavin fancied the puddle of water around him spread a little, like he was releasing some sort of weird cockroach-fluid. He gagged a bit at the thought and Michael glanced across at him.

“Don’t like bugs?”

“Don’t like squashed bugs,” Gavin replied, and Michael snorted.

“And on that note, what do you call a fly without wings?”

“I know that joke, Michael,” Gavin said, and rolled his eyes. “A walk.”

“You could have fucking played along.”

“It was a really bad joke, anyway." 

And it _was_ a bad joke, except they actually did have a name for it among his kind - a name for bird hybrids who couldn’t fly, particularly those who had just never learned. Who had been raised by non-winged hybrids, or coddled as children. Who had left it too late and couldn’t fly now, or were too scared to, or were a type of bird whose wings were too small, like an emu or a penguin. 

_Ground-crawlers._

It was a toxic, ableist sort of culture that placed too much emphasis on your ability to use your wings, but it was one Gavin had grown up in, one that was deeply engrained in him. And he’d never had a problem with it before because he could fly - he could fly _well_. He was agile and manoeuvrable and years of trying not to get shot out of the sky had made him good at dodging things mid-air. 

Until now.

The word swam back into his mind as he lay in bed struggling to sleep. He remembered the way he’d taunted his little brother back when they were first teaching him to get off the ground - _come on, you don’t want to end up a ground-crawler -_ there was a shame to it, a shame he felt now as he flexed his wings and thought _why the fuck won’t you just_ work - except it wasn’t his wings that were the problem, it was his mind and his brain and his coward heart, and that was possibly even more despicable.

The dreams began that night.

Sometimes he was on the mountain and sometimes he was on the roof and sometimes he was nowhere, just whirling through black nothingness. But every single time he fell - every single time his stomach dropped and he thought _I have to fly, I have to fly, I have to use my wings_ \- only he _couldn’t_ \- and panic would overtake him. _I have to wake up before I hit the ground or I will die_.

He did wake up, but he woke up with his heart pounding, in a cold sweat, his wings dead weights hanging off his back. Shaking and shaking and unable to stop.

Ray stirred next to him, a too-light sleeper. He sat up, groggily wrapping his arms around Gavin and pulling him closer. Nightmares weren’t uncommon among them, they’d had too many close calls. In recent nights it had been Geoff, mostly, but he’d push them away when they tried to help. Gavin knew what he was dreaming of and it seemed it had spread to him now too.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ray whispered. 

Gavin shook his head. Curled into him and buried his face in Ray’s neck as they lay back down. It was comforting to be held and for a moment the words were on the tip of his tongue.

But he couldn’t say them. Because _something is wrong with me_ \- _something is broken in me_ \- _I guess I’m just a ground-crawler now_ \- what would happen then? Saying it seemed to make it real somehow, a solid problem that he’d have to face up to rather than telling himself _I can fix this, next time I will fix this_. And if he couldn’t - what would be the point of him then? Nothing. _Fucking useless_.

**14.**

“Gentlemen,” Geoff announced, striding into the den. “Are you ready to pull off a heist?”

They turned from where they’d been engaged in a brutal match of Mariokart. Gavin was glad for the interruption as he had been losing terribly, but couldn’t quite help feeling a bit surprised by Geoff’s sudden enthusiasm.

Since Gavin had fully recovered - for all outward appearances, anyway - Geoff had pretty much returned to normal. But he’d still been careful, overly cautious - barely letting Gavin do more than keep watch at doors for them. Gavin was not complaining, especially given his recent flying issues. But a heist - a heist was something big. 

He caught Geoff’s eyes and saw, for a moment, the briefest flicker of uncertainty there. It hit him then.

This was it - this was Geoff’s push back towards normalcy. This would bring them all back together again, prove that everything was fine. That the Fake AH Crew was back to functioning at 100%.

“There’s a fancy-ass painting being displayed at the state gallery right now,” Geoff said, switching off their game and sticking a USB into the side of the TV instead. “Worth a shitload of money. We are going to steal it.”

The screen turned blue then lit up with the image of the exhibition at the art gallery. They all stared at it for a long, quiet moment.

“What,” Ryan said slowly, “The actual fuck is that supposed to be?”

“It’s abstract,” Geoff explained, sounding like he was trying very hard not to laugh. 

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Right. We all know what abstract means. A shitty doodle a five year old could have done passed off as modern art.”

“It looks like a vagina,” Ray supplied.

“ _Ray_ ,” they all groaned, mostly on principle. Michael leaned over and elbowed him. “Way to lower the tone.”

“We were all thinking it!” Ray protested.

It was true. There was something very… labial about the pink wavy lines on the canvas.

“Okay,” Jack said then. “It might be ugly as sin but if it’s worth a lot, I’m all for it. What’s the plan?" 

The plan involved smoke bombs, striking in the middle of the night, and Michael posing as a security guard. It was actually quite a solid plan, rather more thought through than some of their others had been.

“Gavin,” Geoff said - and met his eyes properly for the first time in a long while. “You’ll be keeping an eye on the main hall from this balcony here. Anyone comes in, you let us know.”

Gavin nodded. His heart was starting to beat faster again, and he tried to force it to slow down. _Keeping watch from a balcony. No flying involved there. I can get by doing everything on foot if I’m careful_.

And if something happened - if he should have to fly - well, the heist wasn’t for another week or so. In the mean time, maybe he would fix himself. No, scratch that - in the mean time, he would _definitely_ fix himself.

“Great!” Geoff said then - and a grin split his face, a wide, silly grin that he hadn’t worn in too long. “We’re back in business, then. Can’t stop the Fake AH Crew!” 

Michael cheered, and Ray attempted to instigate a Mexican wave but no one else joined in. And everyone started laughing then, and chattering at once - discussing the plan or commenting on the art. Gavin sat and watched them and thought _I cannot fuck this up or I will fuck_ this _up - all of us - the crew -_ because there stood Geoff and Jack, finally smiling at each other again.

**15.**

Gavin stepped up to the end of the roof. He kept his toes in line with the very edge, not an inch over, and did not lean forward. He didn’t want to see the drop. From here it looked like he was still standing on solid tiles and shingles.

He closed his eyes. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

 _It isn’t hard. Jump off, fly. Jump off, fly. You won’t fall, you won’t fall, you won’t fall_.

He squeezed his hands into fists. Bent his knees a little.

 _Jump off_.

He didn’t.

He couldn’t make his body do it. Letting out a low hiss of frustration, he tried again. Count backwards from ten. _At zero you jump._

He still could not do it. His joints locked and his hands shook and he felt like he was made of stone, immovable and frozen. Like if he tipped off the roof he would crash rock-heavy to the ground, would crack and shatter. In the pit of his belly ugly fear crawled like a sea worm; grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.  

“Gavin?”

The voice made him jump violently. His eyes snapped open and he teetered forward off balance and for a moment _panic_ as he saw the ground waver under him. His head swam. The world spun. Wings flapped frantically as he stumbled backwards.

“W-what?” he snapped out. Jack was standing across the garden, having just emerged from the house, watching him quizzically.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing,” he replied - and it was true, too true. “I’m doing nothing.”

“Okay,” Jack said, still sounding a little confused - and barked out a laugh. “If you couldn’t fly I might be worried. I’ll leave you to your nothing, then.”

Gavin watched him go back inside the house. He dropped cross-legged to the roof, drove his fists down against the rough tiles. _But I can’t fly._ It hit him then, that that was true. He knew that no matter how long he sat up here he would not be able to make himself jump. _But I can’t fly any more._

Something choked up in his throat, a heavy pressure in his chest. He spread his wings out as far as they would go, stretched them until they hurt. Suddenly he hated them. _Useless, useless, fucking useless_. The sky suddenly seemed very far away. The ground even further. 

**16.**

The door was closed. A still, heavy air hanging in the apartment, too quiet out here alone. Gavin stood, biting his lip.

“-going to be the getaway driver.” Geoff was in the bedroom, pulling his shirt on over a kevlar vest, running over the plans as he went. The others stood watching him, but they all turned when they heard the door creak open.

“Gavin, there you are,” Geoff said. He smiled. Gavin could not smile back. “You ready for the big hit, buddy? Soon we’ll be one vagina-painting richer-”

“I can’t do it.”

He had thought it would be hard to say the words, but it wasn’t - they spilled from his lips too easily, leaving his mouth dry and empty and hollow. No take backs.

They were all looking at him now but all he could focus on was Geoff. His pale eyes wide, confused - that ever-present guilt still lurking below everything else.

“What…” It was Michael who spoke up, coming up by his side. His hand reached out to grip Gavin’s arm, fingers too warm against his skin. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t… I can’t do it. I can’t do the heist.” And _this_ was hard to say. Explaining was hard. “I can’t… I can’t fly, anymore.”

“What do you mean you can’t fly?” Jack had come up too now. The others were closing in around him, a wall of staring, judging eyes. He suddenly felt very small. “You have wings, don’t you?”

“Yeah but they… they don’t work, _I_ don’t work, not since I… not since I fell. I’m scared of falling again.”

“You’re _scared_?” Ray, incredulous - Gavin couldn’t look at him.

“Dude,” and Michael was squeezing his arm now, “You’re nervous, right? We’re all nervous before a hit. I get it, things went fucking south last time, but not this time. We’ll be fine, you’ll see-" 

“No, you don’t _get it_ ,” and his voice was rising in frustration now, “I _can’t do it_. There’s something wrong with me. My head… I can’t… I literally _cannot fly_ , Michael, I just… something happens, my head goes mental and I can’t do it. Please, I can’t do it.”

He could feel their eyes boring into him then. Dropped his gaze to the floor. 

Then everything went to hell.

“You broke him!” Jack’s growl, accusing, as he rounded on Geoff - “You fucking broke him, this would never have happened if you hadn’t made him go up that mountain - what the fuck are we going to do with him now?”

And Geoff, shrinking backwards, closing off before Gavin’s eyes. His eyes dulling and glazing over with nothing but terrible guilt. “My fault,” was all he seemed able to say, “My fault, my fault, my fault-“

And Ryan, Michael and Ray had their hands all over him suddenly, each trying to pull him towards them - “ _Fucking useless_ ,” Michael was hissing - “ _You can make it up to us in other ways,”_ \- Ray - Ryan didn’t say anything at all, but he had grabbed Gavin by the wings, hands running roughly through the feathers, desperately, as though if he showed them enough attention they might kick into action and _work_ again.

Gavin wanted to scream. Wished he could curl and shrivel in on himself the way that cockroach had, that too-hot summer day- 

Wished he would just _expire_ -

The door was closed. He could hear muffled voices from behind it. The others were getting dressed, getting ready, going over the plans. He could open that door right now and step through and say it - _I can’t do it_ \- the words were easy-ready on the tip of his tongue. Waiting to slip free. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. His dark imaginings lurked at the fringes of his mind, all the terrible _what-ifs_ and _maybes_ \- everything that could go so terribly, terribly wrong if he told them.

He couldn’t tell them.

And maybe, maybe - a last ditch hope - maybe the job would help. Maybe if he was in actual danger adrenaline would kick in and he wouldn’t have to even think about it - he’d fly instinctively, he’d done it before, swooping back away from peril. Maybe he just needed something to kick-start him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

**17.**

Gavin had been worried about many things, but falling asleep on the job was not one of them. He couldn’t help it; at night the grand hall of the state gallery was quiet and still. There was something hushed about the atmosphere, something peaceful like a library, and as he sat up on the balcony, eyes methodically scanning the hall below for any signs of movement, he felt himself beginning to drift off.

Too many sleepless nights were beginning to catch up to him. The bad dreams had kept up over the last few weeks, leaving him tired and irritable during the day. 

A crackle in his earpiece jolted him awake, and for a moment he stumbled, surprised, reaching out to grab the balcony rail to keep himself upright.

“Guards are down,” Jack said. “Breaking into the room now.”

“Gavin?” Geoff asked. “Everything clear on your end?”

He looked around the hall again. Everything was as dark and still as it had been ten minutes ago.

“Yep,” he began, then trailed off as a sudden thud echoed through the hall. He bolted upright, surging forward to the rail and frantically trying to zero in on the source of the noise.

A door at the bottom of the hall had just been kicked in and as he watched, a series of dark figures passed through. For a second he thought it was the police, then he noticed the masks, the heavy guns, the battering ram swinging from the hands of two of them.

“Shit,” he hissed, ducking back behind the balcony rail. “Geoff, there’s another gang here to steal the painting!”

“The fuck,” Geoff said, and there came a litany of curses from the others. “They heading to where we are?”

Gavin chanced a peek over the edge of the balcony. Indeed, some of them were heading down the hall towards the entrance to the paintings section where the others were.

“Yeah, they are,” he whispered. “You guys got the clunge yet?”

“The what?” Jack asked.

“The clunge! The clunge painting!" 

“Oh. Almost, we’re just trying to get it out of this _fucking_ frame-” there was a thud from his end, but before Gavin could inquire further the blast of a shotgun rang out next to him and wood splintered from the balcony right beside his head.

“I know you’re up there,” a voice hollered from down below. “I can hear you - I can _smell_ you.”

 _Fuck_ , he thought - of course they’d be predator hybrids. There was no way he could have hidden by just keeping out of sight.

Another shotgun blast rang out and he flinched, crawling forward.

“Gav? What’s going on?” Michael demanded in his ear.

“They’ve spotted me,” he hissed, scrambling to his feet and darting through the balcony door, slamming it behind him. The only way out from here was down into the actual hall, though, and for a moment he froze, unsure what to do.

“Get the fuck out of there,” Geoff snapped- “Gav? You hear me?”

“I have to go through the hall, they’re in there.” His hand was shaking as he pulled his gun from his belt and checked the clip. He paused and took a few deep breaths.

He shouldn’t have been scared. He’d been in tighter situations before. But somehow - maybe because he was shaken up from everything that happened over the last few weeks - somehow this suddenly felt more dangerous, like he was in way over his head. He didn’t have his wings to back him up now.

“Gavin?” Geoff demanded, and he blinked a few times, snapping back to attention. Something in his voice or his quiet seemed to have alerted the others that something was wrong.

“Gavin,” Geoff ordered - he’d slipped into leader mode now, that commanding tone of voice that always had them obeying him instantly. “Get your ass out of there _right now_. Michael, Ryan, you’re near him, get going. Try take out these guys before they reach us. Gavin, get to the door. You know where to meet us, right?”

“Right,” Gavin replied - and took a few deep breaths. _Calm down. It’s just another mission - just a normal job._

He walked down the narrow stairwell and paused at the door leading into the great hall. From beyond he could hear voices but couldn’t quite make out the words. Each side of the museum’s entrance hall was lined with a series of marble pillars holding up the gallery above. If he was quick and stealthy he might be able to get by the side using them for cover, and get to the door without getting pinned down in a firefight.

He might have hesitated, if he hadn’t realised that every second he wasted here was a second closer to them actively breaking through the door and coming up to the balcony to find him. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and darted out.

Instantly gunshots rang out around him. He ducked back behind the pillars, heart pounding. Paused to peek out and fired off a few shots. In the dark and with the other gang moving fast, he was pretty sure he missed every single one.

“Don’t kill him!” he heard someone yell - and the next thing he knew they were swarming towards him. He turned tail and ran, racing for the door - he would have flown, if he could, would have gotten up in the air and out of reach. But he couldn’t - was left to scramble, nearly slipping on the polished wooden floor. 

Too slow.

Someone tackled him and he hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him, a heavy, crushing weight on top of him. He felt his earpiece fall out and clatter to the ground beside him. Seconds later a heavy boot descended on it, crushing it in a shower of sparks. 

“Little birdy isn’t here alone,” the man on top of him growled, already roughly grabbing him to flip him over onto his back. “Looks like we’re not the only ones with eyes on that painting, boys.”

Gavin stared up at him. _Dogs_ , he realised, a whole pack of them. The brutish sort of thugs they’d run into too many times before. Not normally that much of a threat - unless they cornered one of them alone, as they had here. _Stupid, stupid_ \- if his bloody _wings_ had been working he could have picked them off from the air. Wouldn’t be in this position now.

“Hey….” the thug on top of him grabbed the front of his shirt, hauling him upright a bit. “Wait a second, isn’t this Ramsey’s bit of rough?”

Great. If there was anything worse than being caught it was being caught and _recognised_ \- that was when shit got really messy. His gun had fallen from his hand, skittering away across the boards, but it wasn’t too badly out of reach - he began to thrash, struggling in the dog’s strong grip.

He might not have been able to fly but his wings were still powerful weapons; he twisted and lashed out with them, sending the man holding him falling backwards. Scrambling free, he crawled frantically for the gun, but a grip latched around his ankle and hauled him bodily back, sending him crashing face-first to the floor again. His jaw smashed hard against the ground and he felt his mouth fill with blood as he bit his tongue.

A boot drove into his side and he groaned, curling in on himself, wings rising defensively-

“Don’t kill him!” the leader of the gang snapped again, “If Ramsey’s here we need leverage.”

Someone grabbed his hair and yanked him up to his knees, a painfully tight grip around his wrists twisting his arms up behind his back as two of the others began to hit and kick him. Blows rained down on his ribs, stomach, shoulders, across his face - Gavin was no stranger to pain; that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt, even if he made a point of spitting as much blood as possible at his captor’s shoes, which happened to be a rather impressive pair of white Adidas. Not the sort of footwear he’d recommend on a heist.

For a moment, as they loomed, raining boots and fists down upon him, an instinctual sort of panic rose up at being pinned down by so many predator hybrids. But he knew Michael and Ryan were on the way, and forced it down - and sure enough it wasn’t long before a shot rang out and one of the men beating him crumpled to the ground. Gavin took advantage of the distraction to wrench himself free; he fell sideways, dazed from one too many blows to the head, but even with his vision swimming he crawled for the gun.

“Get the fuck off him, bitches!” he heard Michael yell, accompanied by several more shots. His hand closed around the gun and he spun around in time to see two more of the gang drop.

Chief thug had snatched up a pistol and he was firing nonstop at Michael, who had ducked back behind the columns. But as Gavin watched several rifle shots took out chunks of the pillars themselves and he tracked them back to the gallery overhead. At some point part of the gang had snuck up to the balcony; there were at least two up there, shooting down at Michael, and from this low angle there was no way they could take them out. 

“Gavin, get up there and get those guys!” Michael hollered. 

He froze. 

He froze, because the only possible way to get them was to fly up there and he couldn’t - he _couldn’t_ \- even with adrenaline surging through him and Michael yelling and gunshots ringing out all around, he _could not fly_. 

And he was breathing too fast again, starting to feel sick-dizzy as the mere thought of kicking off the ground, of getting up that high, sent the world tilting on its axis again around him. He dropped to his hands and knees, bracing himself against the ground, feeling like he was about to drop right through the surface of the earth somehow. That worm of fear dug deep into his gut, a physically painful burn. 

From the corner of his eye he saw Michael dart out from behind the pillar and shoot the last man down in the hall. The rifles turned their attention to him now but the next thing Gavin knew there were strong arms wrapping around his shoulders and he was being dragged back behind the cover of the pillars. 

Cool marble hit his back. Warm hands pressed to his cheeks, tilting his face up, a gentle thumb wiping blood from just below his eye.

“Gavin? Gavin? Jesus Christ, what the fuck did they do to you?”

“N-nothing,” he forced out - because yeah, he was sore as fuck but it was nothing he hadn’t brushed off before, he’d had worse - but now he sat, huddled in on himself, seized with fear. _Nothing. They did nothing. It was all me, it was all my mind_.

Michael was staring at him in disbelief. He checked the clip of Gavin’s gun, then pressed it back into his hand.

“In that case, I need you to fly up there and take those two out before we get got by them.”

“I… I…” And it had seemed so easy before, back at the house, to tell them. _I can’t do it_. But now the words suddenly would not come. His mouth was dry as bone, his tongue thick and ungainly and unable to form proper syllables.

A shot rang out too close to them, splintering the floor only inches from Gavin’s knee, and Michael lunged forward to cover him, pressing him back against the pillar under his weight.

“Gavin, what the _fuck are you doing_?” he hissed, breath warm against Gavin’s ear. He sat back again as the rifle shots paused for a moment, presumably as they reloaded, and grabbed Gavin’s wrist, trying to tug him upright. “Fucking get up there and take them out!”

He was stared at Gavin expectantly and suddenly he _could not breathe_.

Suddenly, it just all became too much. The stress of the last few weeks, of his hundred and one failed attempts at jumping off roofs and kicking off the ground. The fear and anxiety and sleepless nights haunted by bad dreams. The fact that he was once again beaten and bruised and Michael was staring at him waiting, _waiting_ , but he couldn’t even _think_ about moving from where he was sitting or he started to feel unsettled, unstable, like the floor would open under them and they’d both somehow fall. 

He must have blacked out for a second because the next thing he knew Michael’s hands were on his shoulders, squeezing firmly, and he realised with a curious sort of detachment that he was breathing far too fast, gasping and gasping like a drowning man, nearly choking on every breath.

“Gavin? Gavin?” Michael was demanding, but Gavin couldn’t quite get his eyes to focus on him. He thought he might be about to have a heart attack; it was pounding so hard and fast that a terrible ache was beginning to spread through his chest. 

He was going to die.

He was going to choke to death, or his heart would give out, or somehow - somehow he was going to fall. His head was spinning, spinning, spinning, the whole room whirling around him.

He barely managed to push Michael away and lurch to the side before he threw up.

Little came up; he had felt too sick to eat much before they set off and his appetite had plummeted over the last few days. He ended up caught in a vicious circle of dry heaving and trying desperately to suck in air, and barely even registered the hand rubbing slow circles on his back or the fact that the gunshots had stopped. He only vaguely came back to the present when a new set of boots entered his vision and suddenly Ryan was crouching next to him, the dim thought reaching his mind - _oh, he must have taken out the people shooting at us_.

“Gavin,” Ryan said soothingly. A hand settled on his head, a warm reassuring weight. Gavin leaned into the touch but couldn’t really make anything else respond. He let out a dry sort of sob.

“I can’t calm him down.” Michael’s voice, distant, faint as though Gavin’s ears were blocked.

“What happened? What did they do?”

“They didn’t do shit. Or nothing I saw, they smacked him around a bit but… I didn’t see anything, I didn’t think… he just freaked out all of a sudden. Gavin?” And Michael was crouching back next to him, now. His eyes were practically glowing in the dark of the hall and Gavin found his gaze drawn to them like beacons. “Gavin, it’s okay, they’re dead now.”

He couldn’t speak. He was shaking violently, he realised, still breathing too fast. Ryan gave a soft sigh and looped an arm around his waist. Hauled him upright and tucked him in close to his side.

“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered. He paused, listening, and Gavin could make out faint voices from his earpiece - his own lay shattered on the floor some way away. “He’s fine, Geoff, I’ve got him. I’ll get him out. I took out all the rest of that gang but that shooting will have drawn a fuckton of attention. Grab that painting and let’s split before the cops come down on our asses.”

Everything happened in a blur after that. Being held by Ryan helped; he felt steady, safe in his arms. The ground seemed more solid under his feet - the wooden floorboards of the hall, slick with blood. The concrete steps outside. It had been raining and their shoes splashed through puddles as Ryan dragged him to the getaway vehicle, the bright red and blue lights of approaching police reflected on the glassy wet tarmac of the road. 

By the time he properly came back to himself they were in the car, driving too fast, bumping over potholes hard enough that his head thudded rhythmically against the window. Michael was holding his hand, thumb brushing across his knuckles back and forth, back and forth. Gavin did not turn his head. Didn’t want them to know he was alert and back with it yet, because then… then they’d demand explanations.

 _They’re going to anyway. The minute you get back to the house_.

And it struck him, then, that his little problem had come out in the worst way possible. He’d fucked it up, had fucked everything up, had nearly gotten himself killed - nearly gotten _Michael_ killed, possibly Ryan too - it was the worst way he could have alerted everyone to his situation.

_There’s no way out of it now. You have to tell them._

The thought made a different sort of anxiety well up in him, something subtler and sicker. He swallowed a mouthful of bitter bile. Watched raindrops roll down the car window like tears and wished the car ride would last forever.

**18.**

When Gavin and Dan were barely out of school and starting to get caught up in Very Bad Things, they saw a mouse being torn apart by a pack of wolves.

This was in London, and they were already reeling from the shock of the big city after a lifetime spent in sleepy little Thame. In the dark, wet backstreets of a bad part of town, they crouched behind garbage dumps piled high with stinking refuse and watched as the pack set upon the weedy little hybrid with tooth and nail and the occasional flashing blade of a pocketknife before retreating away with the drugs the man had been trying to sell. 

As soon as they were gone Gavin turned away and very calmly threw up into the dumpster. Dan reached out and delicately smoothed his hair back from his forehead.

“It’s the smell,” Gavin explained, between retches.

“The blood?” 

“No - I can’t even smell that, Mr Enhanced Wolf Senses. I meant the garbage.” He wiped his mouth and straightened back up. “There’s mingin’ old milk in there or something. Well. Guess we know who’s been nicking those drugs and popping off the distributors. Best get back and let Barry know.”

“Jesus Christ, B, are you…” Dan trailed off. Wilted a little under Gavin’s raised eyebrow, then continued. “You’re not rattled at all by that?” 

“‘Course I’m rattled,” Gavin replied. And he was, a bit. His heart was slamming in his chest and he’d tried not to look, for the most part. But he wasn’t scared. He’d seen people killed before. “But shit happens, Dan, we knew that getting into this.” 

He started to walk off but Dan grabbed his wrist and tugged him back. Gavin turned to him, annoyed, and Dan seized his shoulders and spun him around towards the body. Gavin squirmed, for all his bravado not quite wanting to look at it again, but in the dark and fallen as it was, he could not see much.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded. He flicked his wings out hard enough that they caught Dan in the chin and made him stumble. He let Gavin go, rubbing his jaw, but stared down at him with determined eyes.

“Take a good long look at that, B,” Dan said, something a little too earnest in his tone, “And promise you won’t let that shit happen to you.” 

Gavin blinked, mouth opening and closing a few times. “Wh… what are you on about?” 

“He was prey, Gav,” Dan explained - sounding a little desperate now. “He was fucking prey and you are too and they were in a pack. You don’t… I don’t know if you know this-”

“Probably,” Gavin cut in, but snapped his mouth shut when Dan glared at him, an uncharacteristic seriousness sitting uncomfortably on his boyish face.

“When predators get together and hunt something down it gets intense. It takes over,” he explained, “And if they pin you down there’s nothing you can fucking do about it. So don’t ever let them pin you down. Don’t let them corner you and get you on your own.”

“I… I won’t,” Gavin replied, staring up at him, something a little uneasy building up in his stomach now. “I can fly, B. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, well, you do that.” And Dan seemed a little embarrassed now, turning away to rub at the back of his neck. “You stay up high and out of their reach.”

Gavin forced a smile. Dan’s concern was too genuine - and too well-warranted - for him to bother teasing him about it. Because he knew their dynamic was odd - a lone wolf capable of breaking most other hybrids in two trailing around after a spindly little bird (this was before he filled out and cut his hair and Got His Shit Together) - he knew that in the real world, the dangerous world that they crept closer to with every shady job they took for quick cash, there were things out there that would tear him apart without a second thought. That Dan wouldn’t always be there to back him up. 

And he wasn’t.

Later on. Gavin alone. He killed someone for the first time in a dank Manchester back alley, hands shaking around a gun, wings beating frantically to keep himself in the air. Dancing just out of reach of the swipes of his hit, a massive bear thug armed with an iron pipe and the pain-dulling, mind-wiping daze of hallucinogens. Drugged out and too strong, he’d already landed a blow against Gavin’s arm so hard he was pretty sure something had cracked, because it hurt terribly to move it.

But he hadn’t let him pin him down. Had scrambled out and flapped his way into the air and now - now he shot someone for the first time. The gun was small but the kickback jolted his injured arm and the volume of the shot made his heart leap nearly into his throat, his feathers fluffing up involuntarily as he flinched back. The second shot was easier, by the third he didn’t even blink. The bear fell, and Gavin remained in the air as long as he could, hopping from wall to wall in the narrow alleyway stinking of piss and garbage. Stayed up there until he was sure the man would not move again.  

Then he landed, quietly, and wondered if there was something wrong with him because _still not scared._ Tired and shaky and in pain but there was something relieved, under it all, because he’d found his niche - no one could touch him if he stayed out of reach. And he was very good at staying out of reach.

**19.**

In the awkward, still quiet of the kitchen, Gavin found himself noticing the small things. The tiny chip marring the smooth curve of Geoff’s left horn. The way the dark fur on Ray’s ears was messed all at odds after he’d pulled his hood off, and how he tugged distractedly at the strings of his jacket. How Michael’s eyes were still shining too brightly because it was dark in here; they hadn’t got all the lights on. 

“Are you feeling better now?” Geoff asked, gently.

 _No,_ Gavin thought.

“Yes,” he said.

Geoff let out a stream of breath and Gavin flinched at the sound. He immediately wished he hadn’t because they all looked at him with an odd sort of wariness, like he’d suddenly turned to fine bone china and they were worried he’d crack and fall apart. Perhaps they were right; even now, at home, after having calmed down on the trip back, everything was eating away at him from the inside. If he opened his mouth too wide the cowardly worms would crawl up his throat and spill from his lips to the floor, squirming in plain sight for them to see just how his courage had rotted away.

“Gavin,” Jack said, gently. “What happened back there?”

“I panicked.” He swallowed, throat tight. “I… I’m sorry.”

“Dude, we’re not blaming you, but what the fuck happened? You’ve never freaked out like that before.” Michael had his arms folded and Gavin noticed his knuckles were scraped from where he’d scratched them against the pillar when he tried to cover Gavin. “How the hell did you get yourself jumped by those guys, anyway? There weren’t actually that many of them, you should have been able to handle it easy.”

“Michael,” Geoff started, warningly, and Michael backtracked immediately.

“I’m not blaming you, boi. I’m just worried-”

“I can’t fly.”

He’d been thinking over it for so long in the car, all the different ways he might say it, but in the end it came blurting out as simple as anything. They all froze and stopped and _looked_ at him, and all he could do was barrel on. 

“I can’t… I can’t fly. I couldn’t fly. That’s why they got me. That’s why I couldn’t take the snipers down. I couldn’t _bloody fly_.” 

“Gav…” There was confusion in Ryan’s voice. He was standing a little way behind Gavin, leaning in the kitchen doorway, but Gavin couldn’t bring himself to turn his head and look at him. “I don’t understand. Why?” 

“Since… since the mountain. I just can’t do it. My head goes all haywire and I… I just… I can’t. I’m going to fall.”

His voice sounded too loud in the quiet kitchen and suddenly he hated it, hated how high and choked and _desperate_ it was, and he thought that they must hate it too. “So I… I fucked up the heist and I’m _sorry-”_

“Jesus Christ, Gav, how long has this been going on?” Jack cut in - his eyes were flickering to the side, now, and Gavin could _see_ him running over a mental catalogue of the last few weeks. Must be picking up things now, all the times Gain had walked on jobs instead of using his wings. The time he’d found him up on the roof. 

“A… a while now. A month, maybe more.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Michael’s sudden curse made him jump, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I didn’t… I thought I could fix it before the heist, I’ve been trying… trying to fix it. But I can’t, I-”

“I’m not worried about the God damn _heist_ , Gav, I’m worried about _you_.” Michael stepped forward and Gavin stepped back and it was only then that he realised his wings were drawn up like a shield and he was breathing too fast again. 

Jack’s face softened and he held out a soothing hand.

“Shh, Gav. It’s okay, no one’s blaming you. It’s not the end of the world, okay? In fact, we should have expected this, that was a… a really, really bad fall, it’s not surprising that you’re…” he trailed off, searching for a word. Gavin could think of many. Traumatised? Broken? Malfunctioning? 

_Ground-crawler._

“We’ll sort it out,” Jack assured him. A hand landed on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Now that you’ve told us we can sort it out, okay, we’ll help you-” 

“You can’t, I’ve tried, what the hell do you think I’ve been doing these last few weeks? I’ve tried and tried and it just. Doesn’t work, I can’t-” 

He broke off because his eyes had landed on Geoff then. Geoff who had been too quiet and who he now saw was going still and stiff, a dull sort of look in his eyes. Gavin’s heart nearly stopped - _did_ stop when he saw Jack track his gaze and turn to look at Geoff as well. And he could see it, the other man starting to piece things together in his mind, making connections that would inevitably lead to him blaming himself- 

 _No lasting damage_ , Ryan’s voice rang in his mind, almost mocking them now with how _fucking untrue_ it was-

It overwhelmed him now. Geoff was going to freak out and Jack was going to freak out and it would all happen just as he’d foreseen it. They would fall to pieces, the crew - like a stack of cards; he’d crumpled and fallen away and now the others would all fall with him. 

“It’s not you, Geoff,” he cried out, desperate for him to believe it. “It’s not you. You gave me that job because you thought I could do it, but I couldn’t and now, now I can’t do bloody anything anymore.”

He headed for the door, needing to escape the oppressive tension that had fallen over the room, but Jack reached out and snagged his arm, trying to pull him back.

Something triggered in him then, some prey instinct rising up from the stress of the whole day, something that had been bubbling just under his skin when he’d been pinned down by those dogs earlier. He startled, flailing, his wings beating frantically of their own accord, trying to get him _away, away_ , out of reach.

Like a bird caught in a net he flapped wildly. Rose off the ground, smacked Jack in the face with a wing and sent a flurry of feathers everywhere. And then, as he’d expected, he realised he was in the air and felt a flash of panic, another wave of vertigo that had him forgetting which way was up. The next thing he knew he was hitting the ground hard, over-balancing. His wing folded under him at an odd angle and he gave a loud shrill of pain, panic sparking as for a second he thought he’d broken it again. But he sat up, and flexed it - it was sore but fine - and then looked up to find everyone staring at him, frozen.

The silence that followed was the worst Gavin had ever experienced. All he could do was sit, wings fanned out idiotically behind them, the others gazing at him in shock. 

There was something surreal about it - six assorted animals standing around a dimly lit kitchen, mouths gaping open, eyes wide and round as dimes. That ridiculous vagina painting winking at him from where they had left it leaning against the fridge. He felt very abstract himself suddenly; a mess of broken pieces shuffled together into something pointless.

“You see,” he choked out. “You see? I can’t do it. I _can’t_.”

“Gavin,” Jack started, stepping forward, but Gavin just shook his head and scrambled to his feet, nearly slipping on the tiled floor. His ribs protested the sudden movement but he ignored the pain and fled for the door. He needed to get out, needed space. Couldn’t look at them. Ryan made no move to stop him.

At the back of his mind he knew, rationally, that this wasn’t the end of the world. That time would go on and they would move on. But right now, right now he couldn’t see any future beyond some possible horrible impending doom. Beyond fights and Geoff’s guilt and their disappointed gaze as they realised that for all intents and purposes Gavin was useless to the crew. For now - for now, all he could do, that last defensive mechanism, was pull himself out of reach.

 **20.**  

In his dreams he was back on the mountain, running. The pack was pursuing him; bears and wolves and dogs. He could hear their howls, carried on the wind around him. There was nowhere to go but towards the edge of the cliff, the steep sloping side of the mountain. Instinctual panic rose up as the sound of growls and snarls and galloping footfalls picked up behind him.

He skidded to a stop at the precipice. Nowhere else to go. The dizziness began to rise up again, the ground seeming to warp and tilt around him. _Fly, fly, fly_.

 _You stay up high_ , Dan’s voice swam into his mind.

He jumped.

Somehow, in the panic of the dream world, he managed to find the courage to launch himself off the edge of the cliff. And for a moment - for a moment his wings flapped and he was soaring, up and away from his assailants.

Then they stopped.

His wings just stopped working - shut down suddenly, and he was falling again. He tried to scream but no sound came out, sheer inertia knocking the breath from his body. Plummeting and plummeting and _wake up, wake up, wake up-_

He lurched upright, gasping, blinking wildly. For a moment dazed, unsure where he was. Then it came back to him, as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

He’d gone to bed. Fallen asleep, exhausted, before any of the others came in. But they were here now, in the bed. He’d deliberately taken the edge, as close to the wall as possible, but in his sleep he’d rolled closer to the middle and the others had settled in around him. Hadn’t grabbed him or cuddled him though, which he felt faintly, vaguely grateful for. Didn’t think he could deal with being held down at the moment. 

He knew they were all awake now. He’d been too noisy. But none of them moved, in some silent agreement, it seemed, to give him space. And none of them moved when he slipped out of bed and headed out to the kitchen.

The cold of the tiles under his bare feet was reassuring. Made him feel a little less like he was going to throw up. He got a glass of water and sat down in the corner between the counter and the cupboard under the sink, as close to the earth as possible.

Faint footsteps had his head snapping up. It was Ray, he could see the outline of his ears in the faint illumination of the digital microwave clock. He didn’t turn on the light, just crept closer into the room and sat down next to Gavin, their shoulders brushing. 

They sat in silence, and it wasn’t long before Gavin found himself relaxing a little, leaning into the warm press of Ray’s arm. He had always been the easiest of the others to let go around; maybe because he had some innate implacable calm. Maybe because _I love you_ seemed to slip from his lips the easiest, after every snippy or mean comment he made. _I’m just joking. I love you._  

“I know you’re not okay,” Ray murmured after a little while. “But just know we’re not mad at you and we want to help you fix this.”

Gavin bit his lip. His bruises throbbed dully, an ever-present reminder of how close he’d cut it today. How much he’d fucked up.

“What if we can’t?” he whispered. “I… I’m a bloody liability, Ray. Look at what happened today. It’s fucking farcical is what it is. What’s the use of a bird with broken wings?"

“Your wings aren’t broken,” Ray said, slowly, carefully.

“No,” Gavin agreed, “They’re not. I guess it’s me. I guess I’m broken then.”

“Jesus Christ, Gav.” Ray’s arm pulled tight around his shoulder and Gavin half-fell into his side. “Don’t fucking say that, okay? There’s nothing that can’t be fixed and even if… even if somehow nothing works, there’s still shit you can do around here. We don’t just love you because you’re _useful,_ you know that, right?”

Gavin stayed silent. After a moment Ray let out a long, slow sigh. When he spoke it was with an odd note in his voice, something strangely serious that Gavin didn’t hear often from him.

“I’m prey, you know?”

“What?”

“I’m a fucking rabbit. In case you somehow managed to not notice the ears.” He flicked them back and forth a bit and a small smile tugged at the side of Gavin’s mouth. “I got into this young - I know you did too - it took a frankly embarrassing amount of time for me to not jump and flinch every time I so much as saw a predator hybrid coming towards me. And there are a _lot_ of them in this business.” 

“Instinct,” Gavin murmured, and Ray nodded.

“Instinct. So I get where you’re coming from, kind of. I know it’s not the same but… your body getting scared, you can’t control it. I know what that’s like.”

“You’re not scared now, though,” Gavin pointed out. 

Ray nodded again. “You get used to it. You remember the first time you fired a gun? It’s like that.” 

He remembered. The alley and the bear and how his hands had shaken and he’d flinched the first time, and the second, but not the third and not any time after that. He’d adapted quickly, almost too quickly. 

“There’s no need to rush it,” Ray continued. “Like Jack said. It was a pretty bad fall. No one expects you to be alright straight away. And we sure as fuck won’t think less of you for taking your time with this.” 

“I healed up, though.” He flexed his wings again. “I should be fine.”

Ray hesitated, and Gavin glanced across at him. “What?”

Even in the dark he could see the way Ray was biting his lip, seeming torn.

“We weren’t going to tell you,” Ray said slowly, “Because you were really drugged out when you woke up and you didn’t seem to remember.” 

“Remember what?” 

Ray let out a shaky breath. He was quivering slightly, the way he always did when something worried or stressed him even slightly, and Gavin pulled his wings up and tucked them around the both of them like a warm blanket. They could be useful for one thing at least. 

“You woke up like five times in the car when we were getting you back to the lodge,” Ray said. “You were… you were really, _really_ out of it, you were practically delirious. Your wing was all fucked up and you were like, screaming and shit, it was… it wasn’t pretty. That’s why Geoff got so upset about it, I think, he had to hold you down to make sure you wouldn’t damage it any further. After Jack set it you calmed down a lot.” 

“I…” Gavin’s mouth was dry. He tried to remember the moments after the fall but there was a black spot in his memory. “I don’t recall any of that.”

“I’m not surprised. Like I said, you were super out of it.” Ray sucked in a shaky breath. Forced something like a smile. “My point is, I know you think you suck because it was just a fall and you healed up completely fine but… it was bad, and maybe somewhere inside you remember that and that’s why you’re scared. But there’s nothing you can’t work through, Gav, we’re gonna help you every step of the way. And whatever you do don’t fucking blame yourself because if that had happened to me I’d be traumatised as fuck as well. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Gavin replied. And smiled properly, for the first time in a little while - twisted around to hug Ray. Ray’s arms came up under his wings, and pulled him close. He pressed a firm kiss to his cheek before getting to his feet and tugging Gavin up with him. 

“You guys can stop pretending to be asleep now,” Ray said as they traipsed back into the bedroom. The other five sat up instantly and Gavin glanced around at them all, suddenly nervous again. But there was nothing but a fierce sort of determination in Michael’s eyes, a loving kindness in Jack’s. Ryan just smiled at him, presence as solid and reassuring as always. 

Geoff… Geoff still looked uncertain. But he didn’t look away from Gavin. Met his eyes even as Gavin scrambled onto the bed and crawled over to him - drawing a playful hiss from Michael when his knee accidentally landed on the other’s tail - and curled into his chest, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. 

“Not your fault,” he repeated again, and Geoff sucked in a little breath. Then nodded, head ducking down to Gavin’s shoulder, pressing a soft kiss against the side of his neck. 

“We’re going to fix things,” Geoff said. And the others came up then, crowding around them. Ryan’s hands as firm but gentle as ever, running over Gavin’s wings, calmly sorting the dishevelled feathers. Michael and Ray snuggling up between the two of them. And Jack - Jack wrapped his arms around Geoff, and closed his hand over where Gavin and Geoff’s fingers were laced together, and Geoff turned his head from Gavin to kiss him. 

 _Together_ , Gavin thought - the way they’d done things since last year, and Ryan in the bathroom. Then it wasn’t about the crew, or the job, or how many heists they could pull. How well someone could pull a trigger or catch someone out of a falling building. It was about _them_ , and support, and trust, and not doing things alone, and there wasn’t any wound they hadn’t healed between them yet.

**.**

**.**

**.**

Gavin stepped up to the edge of the roof and closed his eyes. The hot day beat down on his bare skin, his sun-warm feathers. The air was thick with summer and under his feet the tin roof of the shed was starting to burn a little. He dug his toes in, felt it solid beneath him. Flexed his wings, back, forth. 

He opened his eyes slowly, leaning forward a little. 

The wave of nausea didn’t come. The world remained stable and still around him. A slow smile spread across his face. It had taken a few months - months of stacking chairs and tables on top of each other, of belly-flopping onto mattresses. Of sitting on the edge of the roof with Ryan or Geoff’s arms tight around him, assuring him he wasn’t about to fall. Keeping him stable until the roaring in his ears and the spinning in his eyes cleared. 

Now he stood, and looked down at the ground below - at the five pairs of arms stretching up to him. 

“Some time this century, Gav,” Michael called up, then hissed when Ray elbowed him. 

“Take your time,” the rabbit shot back. “We’re not going anywhere.” 

“Maybe Ray’s not going anywhere, but my arms are getting tired,” Michael said. “Ten seconds Gavin, or I’ll come up there with wet bread. That’ll have you jumping off.”

Gavin laughed. Stretched his wings back and looked up at the sun and thought, perhaps, Icarus had the right idea. It did not seem so far after all. 

“We’re right here, Gav.” Geoff’s voice from below, low and reassuring. “I’m spotting you.” 

He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times. The roof was too hot now. The ground was not far but it was the sky that called to him, clear and warm and open. The worm in his belly had shrivelled under the hot sun. 

He took a deep breath. And jumped. And flew.

 


End file.
